Film and Firms continues: Quiz Show

The second in my law school film series, Film and Firms, will be this Wednesday: Quiz Show. This week I plan to have a discussion of the film with my colleague, Daria Roithmayr, who will bring a different perspective.

I discuss this and many other films in my article on which the series is based, and for which it is named. Here's some other thoughts I distributed today to the law school community to "prepare" them for the movie:

As millions of people watched and dreamed, the TV show “21” created heroes out of Herbie Stempel, the schlemiel from Queens, and Charles Van Doren, the literary blueblood from a distinguished New England family. But it was all lies and cheating, the creation of scheming network and sponsors, all to increase Geritol sales, without a care for morality. This scheming destroyed the lives of Stempel, Van Doren, their friends and family, destroyed the trust of a credulous audience, and cast a dark cloud over the halcyon era of plenty.

Or. . . the quiz show was simply entertainment. The “lies” and “scheming” were simply the dramatic effects that art brings to our otherwise dreary lives. These artists were pilloried by opportunistic politicians, bent on generating publicity, including Richard Goodwin, who got fame, a book and a movie out of the scandal he created. Trampled in the stampede were the hapless Stempel and Van Doren.

Which scenario are we to believe? Think about how the movie sets you up for a particular conclusion:

Casting: Ralph Fienes as Charles Van Doren, troubled Nazi from Schindler’s List; John Turturro as Herbie Stempel, always the hapless victim; Rob Morrow as Richard Goodwin, impeccably innocent and sincere; Paul Scofield as Mark Van Doren, the voice of morality and traditional values (his iconic role, Sir Thomas More in Man for All Seasons); Martin Scorcese as the manipulative sponsor).

Music: starting with the bright Bobby Darin version of Mack the Knife, ending with the dark Lyle Lovett version, with its emphasis on “Mackie, how much did you charge.”

Cinematography: Glossy Jack Barry, the opening scene portraying the superficiality of the consumer society, the rich hues of the Van Doren family; the crowd’s reaction at the Senate hearing; the audience’s faces.

Script: The dialog about whether you would make the same choice as Van Doren, with the implication that you, the audience, would, or at least should, reject materialism.

At a deeper level, this is about how corporations are portrayed in films. See my article, Film and Firms. Filmmakers often show us the evil that corporations do, but not, exactly, who is responsible -- executives? shareholders? The focus in this film implicitly is on the employees. Here, the suborned contestants portray the sorts of choices corporations force their workers to make everyday. The film tells us that each of us is a moral actor, and we should reject the crass world of pure profit. Sometimes we don’t, and we need the good guys – the journalists and the Congressional investigators – to help us out – including Bob Woodward, as played by Robert Redford, the director of this movie.

Is this how it really is, or is this what we’re being made to think? What does this film show us about the mythmaking potential of this tremendously persuasive medium? What are the public policy implications?